Not all burglaries are conducted by individuals who seek to steal the victims' expensive jewelry or high-priced electronics without incident; home invasions are often only predications for other violent crimes such as murder, rape, kidnapping, property crimes, etc. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics National Crime Victimization Survey dated September 2010, an estimated 3.7 million household burglaries occurred each year between 2003 and 2007. A household member was present in approximately 1 million of these burglaries and became a victim of violent crimes in 266,560 of these events. This pivotal study also revealed that households composed of single females with children had the highest rates of burglary while someone was present.
For most, the thought of being the victim of a crime is daunting enough but to think that an individual or group of individuals would violate the sanctity of the person's or family's own home adds another level of intimacy and seriousness to the issue. Further complicating matters, according to The Wall Street Journal article dated Aug. 2, 2013, “Giving No Time to Misleading Police Stats”, the national average response time for emergency calls is 11 minutes. As a result, many have opted to take the protection of their families into their own hands by purchasing home security systems; high-tech devices such as WI-FI operated cameras; large dogs; or even dangerous firearms to obtain a sense of protection for themselves and their families.
According to US News, Americans spent $20.64 billion on home security systems in 2011 alone and the industry expects to grow by $34.46 billion by 2017. Even for traditionalists, the average annual cost of a large dog is approximately $1,843 or the purchase a firearm can be several hundred including taking on the inherent responsibility and risk of owning a dangerous weapon or animal. Most home security companies offer installation specials as low as $99 but start-up and equipment costs can range between $600.00 and $1,200.00. Because most of these systems are forced to rely on standard landlines and traditional remote monitoring service (someone far away to respond to the alarm wherein “remote” is defined as off-site from the present location, e.g. a different address), customers may incur monthly fees. These fees can cost up to hundreds of dollars per month and include fees for monitoring, maintenance, and other incidentals. Additionally, these services are usually bound by costly and lengthy contracts. Further, to try and circumvent some of the weaknesses of traditional home security systems such as an individual simply cutting telephone lines or bad weather inhibiting call activity, many customers opt for a better connection such as a cellular connection to the alarm company. This “extra” generally adds additional significant equipment, installation and contract costs and imposes the monthly fees of a cell phone, making the use of cellular technology in these systems even more expensive.
Home invasions and burglaries aren't the only problem where emergency response can dictate life and death. According to statistics produced by the National Fire Protection Association in 2013, fire departments responded to 1,240,000 fires resulting in: 3,240 deaths, 15,925 injuries and 11.5 billion dollars in direct property loss. This same entity reported that during 2006-2010 municipal fire departments responded to an annual average of 72,000 carbon monoxide incidents, excluding all incidents where either nothing was found or fire was present. These carbon monoxide incidents result in about 70 deaths per year on average.
Additionally, The National Council on Aging reports that falls are the leading cause of both fatal and nonfatal injuries among older Americans and indicates that one-third of Americans aged 65+ fall each year. In 2013, 2.5 million nonfatal falls among older adults were treated in emergency departments and more than 734,000 of these patients were hospitalized. According to the New York Daily News, the average EMS response was over nine minutes. The direct medical cost of falls was $34 billion in 2013 as reported by the Centers for Disease Control.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, there are 136.3 million emergency room visits per year, including 19.6 million visits by individuals aged 65 and older during 2009-2010. Devices allowing elderly, disabled people or individuals with high risk of a medical emergency to contact first responders do exist but are generally costly, and require expensive equipment, contracts and monthly monitoring fees. They also are typically bound by human monitoring and lengthy chains of communication to reach emergency services who only then, begin the process of dispatching emergency medical professionals.
While there have been a wide array of inventions in the field of home security such as traditional home security systems with remote monitoring, collections of networked cameras, motion detectors, etc. and advancements such as wireless technology and smart-phone controlled devices; these systems lack the ability to automatically summon emergency help and add layers of possible technical malfunction and human error. The cost-prohibitive nature of many existing systems also likely forces many families and businesses to secure only a limited number of windows, doors or rooms in order to reduce cost, thus reducing their protection. This leaves less accessed doors and windows (other frequently used access points during home invasions) unarmed and vulnerable. In fact, according to Household Tips, 67% of burglars gain access to the home through an area other than the front door.
Even when families do invest in such costly systems to secure their entire home; in the event of a home invasion, fire, carbon monoxide or medical emergency—whether these systems rely on landline or “extra” cellular connection, this process usually involves the following, time-consuming steps:
1. A delay
2. Sending an electronic signal to the monitoring service, usually at a far-off location;
3. Employee of the monitoring company responds to the signal by calling the user/homeowner to ascertain whether they are safe or not for the signal received for medical emergency, fire, carbon monoxide, or burglary
4. After obtaining information from the home or business owners, if they were able to be reached and are able to speak, the employee then identifies which police and/or fire department to call in the customer's area;
5. This employee calls the police and/or fire department and notifies emergency personnel of the situation they gathered from the customer to dispatchers;
6. Dispatcher at police and/or fire department only then summon an emergency response. It is only at this point that average response times begin. This lengthy chain of communication in traditional home security, fire, carbon monoxide and medical alert systems drastically increases the amount of time for an emergency response, likely reducing the chance of the successful apprehension of suspects; fire being put out before massive property damage or loss of life occurs; or emergency medical intervention leading to a successful outcome. This process also adds several layers of equipment and people vulnerable to technical malfunction, miscommunication, or human error. According to The Wall Street Journal's “Fire Countdown Clock”: “Fire departments can't control how much time elapses between the start of a fire and when a call is placed to 911, which makes it critical for them to minimize the time they can control.”
In summary, home invasions are a serious problem in America and are often predications for other criminal activities including acts of criminal violence. Fire, carbon monoxide and medical protection alert systems are not widely available to some of the most vulnerable members of society due to costly equipment and contracts and current technology employed to make homes more secure has proven very expensive and inefficient. Further, these systems use an outdated and lengthy chain of command—including several electronic communications and people—to finally call for help. According to the New York Times, there are approximately 36 million security systems in the United States with little else available as effective alternatives.